Souls Harbour Rescue Mission plans to sell one of two buildings related to Riverside Mission to help generate badly needed funds for a new men’s shelter and soup kitchen.
ICR Commercial Real Estate recently erected a “for sale” sign on a two-storey red-brick building at 36 Manitoba Street East, which is adjacent to the main tan-brick Riverside Mission shelter and kitchen building.
According to the real estate company’s website, the 0.2-hectare (0.07-acre) property includes a building that is 181.44 square metres (2,016 square feet) in size with four residential units that have had some “light renovations” over the years.
The asking price for the building is $99,999.
Joe Miller, executive director of Souls Harbour Rescue Mission (SHRM), confirmed that the non-profit organization had put up the residential building for sale since the four suites were vacant and it made no sense to continue incurring costs it couldn’t afford.
“It’s a little bit of demand, but we’ve also struggled in raising funds for a new building,” he said. “We’re building a $3.2 million building and we have $140,000 from the community, so this is another way to add funds to that pot as well.”
Miller stressed that SHRM was not selling the men’s shelter adjacent to the four-suite residential building since the shelter was in the same tan-brick building as the kitchen. That venue will continue serving the community and helping less fortunate residents with food, shelter and clothing.
Meanwhile, the executive director said the non-profit continues to look for money to construct a new shelter/kitchen. Souls Harbour has about $1.3 million in cash and plans to liquidate assets in Regina to bring in another $700,000 to $1 million. From there, the plan is to mortgage the balance’s remainder and continue fundraising.
Once everything is lined up, it will be time to stick shovels in the ground.
“One of the things I’ve learned doing this over the years is you make a plan, and you have to be flexible and able to change and that’s what we’re doing as we need to with this project,” Miller added. “We’re hoping that once everything gets going and construction begins, we’ll see more donations come in and it’ll help things move along even quicker.”
For more information on Souls Harbour and Riverside Mission, visit www.shrmsk.com.
In response to some providers blocking access to Canadian news on their platforms, our website, MooseJawToday.com will continue to be your source for hyper-local Moose Jaw news. Bookmark MooseJawToday.com and sign up for our free online newsletter to read the latest local developments.
